


Bulletproof

by YourFadedGlory (HisNameWasAce)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky has a thing for plums, Character Death, Ficlet Collection, Hurt No Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 05:18:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10678488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HisNameWasAce/pseuds/YourFadedGlory
Summary: Bite-size pieces of fics I planned to write and never did.1.) Steve Dies, Tony kills him2.) Steve kills Bucky & Steve surrenders3.) Tony kills Bucky4.) Everyone & Plums5.) Bucky & Plums





	Bulletproof

**Author's Note:**

> Beware there is no happiness to be found here, only angst.
> 
> So. Much. Angst.

Kevlar was meant for stopping bullets, not repulsor blasts. On their lowest setting it’s enough to knock him off his feet and leave a nasty bruise, Steve found out the hard way that their equivalent of mid power levels burns through the suit and results in a lingering sting. It happens in the blink of an eye, so fast he doesn’t even register the pain at first as the blast tears through his suit and into his flesh, sending him airborne.

Crashing back down against the concrete knocked the air from his lungs and for a moment it is the breathlessness that worries him most, that’s before he tries to lever himself up and finds the whole right side of his body is on fire. It’s a bit higher than a gut shot, up and to the right, his liver and maybe a bit of the large intestine Steve recognizes absently as blood pours from the gaping hole in his torso.

It splashes red against the gray of the stone, running down the Kevlar weave as he sits back on his heels and just looks at it. The serum’s done some amazing things, but this, Steve doesn’t know if there’s any fixing this.

  


\----

 

It takes three years for them to finalize the conclusion, there is nothing to be done for Bucky Barnes. Steve wiped the frost from the glass and read the lines of worry and pain etched into his best friend’s face, the scars and wrinkles belonging to a man much older than the one he remembered. Nodding to T’Challa, the pod came open with a soft hiss and a blast of frozen air that made Steve’s heart stutter with a long swallowed fear.

It took one bullet to fulfill his promise. Gently he laid the body down and wrapped it in a black satin shroud. There was a grave already waiting, deep in the heart of the forest, a few miles from the prince’s palace. Steve could hear the gurgle of a distant stream, song birds twittering overhead above the cut of earth they’d carved away. Far from snow and ice, Steve thought that if Bucky could find peace anywhere it was here.

When it was over and done, moist dirt pack tight over Bucky’s body, Steve wanted nothing more but to lay down in the warm earth himself and surrender to death. But was the coward’s way out and he’d been a coward for far too long.

“Alert the U.N. and General Ross,” Steve said quietly, looking to T’Challa. “Tell them Captain America has surrendered to face trial for his crimes.”  

 

\---

 

The blast shreds through the metal of Bucky’s arm, it’s power spinning him out toward the edge. There isn’t enough traction on the ice slicked stone, not enough height to the concrete lip. Some aspects of science would forever elude Steve, but momentum wasn’t one of them. He watched Bucky’s feet slide, the lip of the concrete barrier just high enough for his knees to buckle against as his weight followed the trajectory of blast over…over… _over_.

For a moment he’s back on that train, hand stretched out and vocal chords straining under the desperation of his scream while his best friend topples out of sight. Only this time there’s only one arm flailing toward him, scrambling for purchase and finding nothing but frozen air. Bucky falls.

He falls and he falls, plummeting closer to death with every breath Steve manages to suck between his gritted teeth. Snow isn’t piled in a powdered bank to break his fall, Steve hears the smack of a body hitting the ice like a book hitting a table, the sound of splintering cracks branching away from the impact echoing up the mountain side and fading into the white.

The last piece of his life, the last person who knew him before star spangled stripes and super soldier serum, blasted from the earth and into a frozen tomb. All these years struggling to be two different people and his one hope of being understood for who he was by someone who’d lived it with him was just _gone_.

Swallowing thickly, Steve pulled his knees up, straightening joint by joint like a marionette brought slowly to its feet. Tony was talking to him, a gnat like buzz in his ear fighting to be heard over the roar of blood pounding inside his skull.

“ _He killed my mom.”_

“Do you feel any better now?” Steve asked, staring into the emotionless gold faceplate. “Bucky’s gone, she’s _avenged_ , you did your duty _soldier_.” Fumbling with numb fingers, Steve pried the shield from his arm, a token from an era now lost. He pushed it into the other man’s arms, wondering if it would weigh on Tony the way it had weighed on him.

“Take it back to Ross. Tell him Captain America is dead, tell him you _won_.” Staring into the electric blue glow of the eye sockets, Steve waited for the hydraulic hiss, for Tony to lift the final mask between them. It never came.

  


\---

 

Steve hated the guard and his goddamn plums. He packed them in his lunch every day, would leave the plump fruit half eaten outside of Bucky’s cell and watch Bucky lick his lips with a want that would never be satisfied. Their daily servings of Nutraloaf never came with any fruit or vegetables, just a slab of foodstuff that couldn’t be readily identified with the naked eye. It didn’t taste bad; in fact, it didn’t taste much like anything. They ate it because it was what they were given, all they were given. It was Nutraloaf or starvation. Steve couldn’t blame Bucky for licking his lips, after a couple of months they were all salivating at the sight of the plums, and the guard knew it too.

 

\--

 

What’s he doing FRIDAY?

 

_Srgt. Barnes has been staring at the fruit bowl for approximately thirty-two minutes and forty-seven seconds._

“Why the fuck is he staring at the fruit bowl?”

 

_Srgt. Barnes does this habitually, once a day, sometimes more._

 

“Does he ever eat anything?”

  
_Last week Srgt. Barnes selected a plum from the bowl. He walked with it to the back patio and then returned it, unblemished, eight minutes later. This is the closest Srt. Barnes has come to consuming anything from the fruit bowl._

**Author's Note:**

> There are other fics I should be updating, fics I should flat out just be writing.
> 
> I'm working on it. I just got tired of looking at these, but I liked them too much to scrap them.


End file.
